I’m having a hard time understanding why the [tag]New York Times[/tag] ran a 2,000-word article on its front page today on the frequency with which [tag]Bill[/tag] and [tag]Hillary[/tag] [tag]Clinton[/tag] spend evenings and weekends together. The piece seems to have pulled off a rare feat: it is equal parts [tag]salacious[/tag] and [tag]pointless[/tag].
Bill and Hillary Clinton flew to Chicago together last month to deliver speeches a few hours and a few miles apart. And like any couple, they thought about having dinner at day’s end. But life is not so simple when you are [tag]married[/tag] to a Clinton.
The former president kept a low profile and left early for Washington, in part to avoid distracting the news media from his wife’s speech. They decided later that dinner would not work, so Mr. Clinton did what he often does: He rounded up some familiar faces — former aides including Joe Lockhart and Mike McCurry — and went out for a late bite at Lauriol Plaza, the bustling Tex-Mex restaurant in Dupont Circle. Only afterward did the Clintons end up at home together.
Mr. Clinton is rarely without company in public, yet the company he keeps rarely includes his wife. Nights out find him zipping around Los Angeles with his bachelor buddy, Ronald W. Burkle, or hitting parties and fund-raisers in Manhattan; she is yoked to work in Washington or New York — her Senate career and political ambitions consuming her time.
This isn’t the [tag]gossip[/tag] page; this is the front page of the most prestigious newspaper on earth.
The NYT’s [tag]Patrick Healy[/tag], who wrote the article, purportedly spoke to “some 50 people” in order to tell readers exactly how many weekends of the last 73 the couple spent together (the answer: 51), how many times they saw each other last August (24 out of 31 days), and how last February was so busy, the Clintons, who the article suggests use their [tag]relationship[/tag] as some kind of political tool, only managed to spend one day together, which happened to be Valentine’s Day.
It’s like a ’90s flashback without [tag]Ken Starr[/tag].
Friends — eager to smooth any rough edges on the relationship — tell old-married-couple stories [about them]…. Rarely, however, do the Clintons appear in public when they are together. That is largely driven by their careers, but it is also partly by choice.
This nonsense was common during Clinton’s presidency, but apparently the New York Times believes some of us may not be contemplating the [tag]Clintons[/tag]’ [tag]love life[/tag] enough anymore, so it’s published a lurid reminder.
Spokespersons for the couple noted in a statement, “She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation. But their home is in New York, and they do everything they can to be together there or at their house in D.C. as often as possible — often going to great lengths to do so. When their work schedules require that they be apart they talk all the time.”
Such a statement was hardly necessary — the Clintons’ private life should be private — but it should have also been the end of the subject. They’re two incredibly busy people who talk constantly and spend as much time as they can together. Period. That the New York Times believes it is worth a more “serious” examination is simply bizarre.
Ironically, Healy’s article goes on to note the unfortunate “[tag]tabloid[/tag] gossip” about the former president. He then spends nearly 2,000 more words describing the [tag]intimacy[/tag] of the Clintons’ relationship based on inside dirt dished by the couple’s “friends.”
I’m at a loss to describe exactly how to describe this article, but “responsible political journalism” isn’t what comes to mind.